As you may or may not know, fifty years ago David Bowie released his first record. To commemorate this life achievement, a new best-of album Nothing has Changed just has been released. Fifty years, that’s impressive! From the generation that pretty much invented rock, there are not many important characters left and I’m pretty sure over the years to come, this kind of 50-year albums will be few. Pick whatever name you want from the 90’s or 00’s, and look at if they are still there now…

Love the cover by the way

Anyway, not the point. The point is David Bowie is releasing a new album! Full with classics, mostly from the 70’s, Nothing has changed is the perfect occasion for the newest generation to get to know the music of a man who litteraly changed the face of rock with his avatar Ziggy Stardust. It’s the occasion to see (well, listen to) the evolution of his own style, how he chose to redefine himself over 5 decades to push the music forward. On the downside, from what I gathered on the vinyl tracklist, songs are not sorted chronologically… maybe a choice, maybe not, those who are not familiar with the evolution of Bowie’s style, it might be surprising to jump from a genre to another.

For those who already know the drill, a best-of album is always the occasion to get back into the music whitout looking for 10 different albums to listen to a medley. But let’s face the reality: if you’re like me, you don’t need this “new album”, you already have the vinyls or CDs and you already know Let’s Dance, Ziggy Stardust, Golden years…

But there is another way to “listen” to a best-of album of David Bowie! And this way, my fellow Bowie fan, is Sol Sunburst! Indeed, Sol Sunburst is a sci-fi novel loosely based on David Bowie’s songs from ’69 to ’74. A brand new way to rediscover songs you already know mixed into an original ecolo-rock story.

2169. War, climate change and animal extinctions will soon overwhelm an Earth ravaged by human greed and neglect. In a last desperate attempt to save endangered species from extinction, humans combine animal genes with human DNA to create animoids – a half-human, half-animal breed.

While the rest of the world is pinning its hopes on Major Tom and his colonisation of Mars, the Diamond Dogs – an animoid eco-terrorist group – is busy trying to save the planet from imminent destruction.

Meanwhile, Sol Sunburst, a rock star whose prophetic songs and charm have turned him into a new messiah, is predicting an Apocalypse in five years. But this is all too soon for Angela, a Diamond Dogs rookie who is on a mission to transform this condemned world…

The novel is a tribute to the Glam rock era (70’s) and is loosely based on David Bowie’s songs from 1969 to 1974 ( “Space Oddity”, “Moonage Daydream”, “Lady Stardust”, etc.) and his Ziggy Stardust avatar. Many allusions to his life have been so introduced in the text (his friend Iggy Pop, his wife Angela , his home in Beckenham and so on…) .

Like any Philip K. Dick’s novel, Sol Sunburst is primarily focused on how the reality can be perceived and on the notion of duality. The text encourages the reader to make his own idea of reality in the describedreality : Who really are Sol Sunburst, Angela, Stooges or Major Tom? Sprinkled with references to drugs, this sub-theme and how they can alter reality (perception, elliptical blackout…) reinforce this main intention.

The second major theme is the ecology. Noting that the human race is a victim of its own growth and narcissistic development, the novel places the humankind in the medium term perspectives to be expected: chain extinctions of animal species and climatic changes but also geneticmanipulations, totalitarian states, media manipulation… and the end of mankind.

If the universe depicted in Sol Sunburst is deliberately pessimistic, it has the same duality that we experience now: due to the choices to be made today, the humankind (represented by the protagonist ) is the unique hope of its own destruction. My novel has no will to denounce or moralize but to give pause to think by pushing our current environmental questions towards their darkest answers.